No clarity on major gambling expansion as NC budget drama continues
Closed-door negotiations to expand legalized gambling in North Carolina continued at the statehouse Monday afternoon with no clarity on whether that language – which lawmakers have not released to the public – will be included in a $30 billion state budget that may pass the General Assembly this week.
The gambling issue has delayed that budget, which includes tax cuts and as-yet-undisclosed raises for teachers and state employees. Budget passage would also trigger Medicaid expansion, extending taxpayer-funded health insurance to hundreds of thousands of people in the state and representing a multi-billion-dollar boost for the hospital industry.
Leadership wants to add authorization for four new casinos, as well as statewide legalization for slot-machine-style terminals often called video poker machines. Including this in the budget would let lawmakers avoid single-issue votes on stand-alone gambling bills.
The House Freedom Caucus, a group of about 20 of the House’s more conservative members, met in private Monday with top leadership in both the House and Senate. Their votes may be crucial as the budget drama unfolds, and caucus members declined to reveal how they might vote after meeting first in Speaker of the House Tim Moore’s office and then with Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger, but it's no secret at the statehouse that Republican leaders have had trouble wooing more conservative legislators to accept this deal.
The meeting with Berger, one of the legislature’s strongest proponents for a gambling expansion, lasted an hour. Afterward Berger told reporters that he was answering caucus members’ questions about the proposal.
“No promises, no threats,” said Berger, whose Rockingham County district could get a $500 million casino development if gambling language makes it into the budget.
Berger added, though, that funding individual legislators hope to see in the budget for projects in their district could be endangered if the carefully crafted budget falls apart. He has said repeatedly that the gambling legislation he supports will only move forward as part of the budget.
“If [a project is] in the budget and the budget fails, the question is, what do we do?” he said. “I don’t know that anybody can say what happens at that point.”
After meeting with Berger, Freedom Caucus members declined comment and went to a closed-door meeting of the full House Republican Caucus. That meeting stretched into the evening and is at least the second marathon caucus session House Republicans have held on these issues. Moore, R-Cleveland, indicated before Monday's meeting began that a budget announcement might follow.
“We’ll have some clarity in just a few hours, but I don’t want to say anything at this point,” he told reporters.
Moore told House Republicans last week that the gambling language didn’t have enough support to move forward in the budget. He also moved the goalposts on the proposal, saying in an email that the budget would only move if 61 of 72 House Republicans support it.
It takes sixty-one votes to pass legislation in the 120-member House, and for weeks Moore had said gambling proposals could come to the floor once at least half of House Republicans backed it.
Berger said he was surprised by the position change.
“It’s inconsistent with everything I’d been told up to that point,” he said.
Moore indicated before entering the closed-door House Republican Caucus – which began about 3:30 p.m. and was still underway at 6 p.m. – that the threshold could change.
“Where the caucus wants a threshold on any number of issues will probably be something that we discuss this afternoon,” he said.
The legislature's Democratic minority has largely been left out of these negotiations. Gov. Roy Cooper reiterated Monday that he hasn't seen the budget Republicans are debating and that gambling legislation should be considered separate from the spending plan.
“I don't yet know what is in this budget," Cooper said. "A lot of rank-and-file members of the legislature don't yet know what's in this budget. Obviously I want a budget that invests in public education, that gets more health care to people, that steps to the needs of North Carolinians. But there's a lot that has gone on behind closed doors. We're not sure [our position on it]. I will let you know as soon as I've had a chance to read it.”
WRAL staffers Josie Zimmer, Laura Leslie and Will Doran contributed to this report.
